Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

You have an idea, you have a product that you want to market. How do I get started? First you will need to answer a few questions.

Identify who you will market this product to. What age group, male, female etc.

Research and identify the competition.

How does your brand differ from other products that are similar? Identify pros and cons.

Create a good package design and logo that appeals to your demographic.

Identify the cost and price point at which the product will be sold.

Create your niche and your own market. By creating a niche you are creating a need. You don’t just want to do what everyone else is doing. You need to go above and beyond whatever the competition is doing. You need to think outside the box and be edgy with your marketing. This will make your product memorable.

Service. Your brand is a promise to your customers. You need to make sure you have a way to service your customers need in case anything goes wrong with your product. They service of your product greatly influences your product’s success.

Once you have your ideas, write everything down in a plan and develop a marketing strategy.

Depending on your demographic this has a lot to do with how your product will be marketed and distributed. In order to make your product successful, you need to create an awesome user experience. This will bring the same customers back again and again with repeat business that will multiply.

Many people call themselves marketing experts. I’ve seen guys who have only been in it for a year and call themselves “Marketing Experts”. Even though I have been in this field for a number of years, and an expert in many areas, I still do not consider myself an expert. That is because in the world of Marketing it is changing everyday. It is virtually impossible for one person to stay on top of every single thing in the Marketing world and be an expert on everything.

Two of my friends that I am always getting advice from with the latest and greatest Marketing tools is Joel Comm and Jim Kukral. Both friends I do consider to be experts in their field, because they have had great success and continue to be on the leading edge of Marketing. In 2009 I wrote a book on Marketing, I spent 5 years of research on it, by the time it was published it was already out of date and I had to keep updating it. I found that the Marketing world was changing so much everyday it was exhausting just trying to keep re-editing my book.

Marketing has changed a huge amount since then and many tools I used are out of date. For example the way Google Analytics worked 5 years ago is definitely not the same today. Just like everyone else Google has to add new tools to stay ahead of the ball game. Technology and Marketing have now gone more toward the mobile apps, and those are even more statistics that are being monitored.

I know that even with how fast everything changes even Joel Comm and Jim Kukral have friends they talk to to get updated advice on certain things. As big as the Marketing world is I think its virtually impossible to be an expert on every single thing in the Marketing world, it’s like trying to manage the universe when each star requires full time effort to keep up with what’s changing. How many different categories do you think there are? I came up with at least 135 different types of marketing. I know it’s not everything, and there are many more changes going on everyday.

The latest algorithm launch is Google Penguin. This was created by Google as a way to decrease search engine results for those websites that violate Google’s webmaster guidelines. The main goal of Google Penguin works to add websites that are reported as spam to a black list known as spamdexing or Black-Hat SEO. It’s a way of poisoning the search engine results to prevent these hacker websites from getting through to the user. The term Black-Hat refers to a hacker that violates computer security for malicious reasons and or financial gain. I have seen all to often when someone clicks on an article or an ad, and unknowingly malware files download to their computer and start altering their registry files like a virus. Once downloaded these files are often hidden and hard to remove. Yeah for Google! For creating the new Google Penguin that will help increase internet security for everyone.

Many people may not be aware, Google Panda is a new tool that has been added to the algorithm to help provide better search results. Launched in February of this year, it’s designed to eliminate low quality, bad or duplicate results. According to Google it only takes a few pages of poor quality or duplicate content to hold down traffic. These are the types of pages that Google Panda will block from delivering you content to help bring better more relevant search results. Therefore improving on SEO Marketing.

I am an avid listener of iTunes. Since 2000 I have listened to their free internet radio. I tunes has been featuring new and upcoming artists by offering a free download every week. How awesome it is to get great music you can download for free. What a great way to promote new music.

Blogging is a great way to express yourself, keep in touch with family and friends. Blogging is not just something you do for fun anymore. It is a great tool to also increase traffic to your website and your business. While we have had a tough economy, it’s also one of the best avenues for free advertising. There are many ways you can blog and make money. I see blogging as one of the best Marketing tools to help boost my business, and any leads I get from it I see as a bonus to what I am already doing.

Blogging has been very successful for many people, but don’t count on it to be a stable income. What you want to do is build multiple streams of income. Most successful bloggers have been doing it for several years. I have been now blogging for one year, and I am happy when I do get the occasional paid blogging job.